Diego Pulido

What a great gathering of amazing people, ideas (and of course, food). Interaction 10 was up to the best standards I may have had of a conference –and more. After all, it was created by and for interaction designers, right?

I had the opportunity to visit a really lovely town, learn loads and meet excellent people –some new fellow interaction designers, others for the first time (even though I had been communicating with them for some time via Twitter). I also had the opportunity to go to a few parties held around the conference, including an impromptu karaoke session at a local Savannah bar.

The experience of an event like this is indeed comparable to that of a music festival. There are various bands speakers going on at the same time and you sometimes wish you could go see all of them, but you are forced to choose. Gladly, the Interaction Design Association records video of every session of the conference, so not only I get to see what I missed (and enjoy again what I witnessed), but so can you. I’ll be sure to post links when those videos become available.

As I mentioned before, it all started with the workshops. The ones I took were all hands-on and very productive. A crash course on the essentials of brainstorming and wireframing. Then, there was the great number of talks.

The first keynote was done by Nathan Shedroff, who I had the chance to see at the Voices That Matter conference in Nashville (2008). The title of his keynote was “Meaningful Innovation Relies on Interaction and Service Design”. The presentation was clearly focused on innovation, but most importantly on the concept of meaning. He defined meaning as “the deepest connection you can make with a customer, user or audience”. Shedroff had many other interesting insights on design, such as: “All design is the process of making experiences, of evoking meaning” and “The most successful experiences are meaningful (not merely novel)”. The one that I found the most interesting was when he mentioned that we need a new way forward (meaningful, sustainable & profitable) and that Interaction designers are in a good position to help make this happen since they we are service-oriente and customer-focused, as well as being comfortable with models, research methods and ambiguity.

You can get Nathan’s entire presentation slides [PDF] here.

Another talk I attended was called “Frames: Notes on Improvisation and Design” by Liz Danzico. I particularly liked this talk because it made me realize how much improvisation is related to design. Liz talked about how improvisation allows for creating in the moment, in response to the environment and how it can result in the invention of new patterns. She notes 4 patterns within improvisation that relate directly to design: it happens in the present (happens in the “now”), it’s responsive (defined on the go), it’s detectable (requires no predetermined knowledge), and it’s additive (accepts all offers). She even made a clear example out of Jazz and how this genre of music creates frames that allow for creating through improvisation. I took from this talk that we can try to design for improvisation. Even thinking about how to mimic the same brain activity generated by improvisation in order to include it into our design process left me pondering.

Now I know why Miles Davis was featured on these Apple ads.

Greg Vassallo had one of the most memorable talks of the entire event, not only because he shared “Ten Things [he] Learned About Being a Design Consultant While Living in the Hospital For a Year”, but also because this presentation is a result of what he learned whilst enduring the battle against a rare case of Leukemia doctors discovered in his son when he was only 2-months old. (Visit loveforluca.com for more on this story). His talk highlighted the similarities that existed between the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and how user experience designers create effective solutions for their clients. Some of the most important things he learned were: care about what you do and show it; plans change; and treat the patient–not the illness, among others. Out of the things Greg mentioned he had learned during that year, I thought the most salient and relevant to designers was when he said it is OK to say “I don’t know”. Greg mentioned how senior doctors where comfortable saying “I don’t know” in front of a question they didn’t have an answer for right away, where as younger doctors would stay firm on their feet whilst appearing to have an answer for everything. There seems to be a similar situation among experienced designers and those who are not as experienced. It’s understandable that “juniors” wish to try and prove themselves in front of peers and clients, but it requires certain level of confidence to say “I don’t really know, but I’ll certainly try to get to the answer”. As a “junior” myself, I hope to be more and more comfortable saying “I don’t know” when I don’t.

After some delicious southern food, some of us proceeded to go to a “Design Jam” (where the second analogy between music and interaction design was evident). We were given the task to try and design a way for cupcakes to travel safely without ruining the frosting. I’ll let the following image speak for itself (although I’ll say these “solutions” would never beat the “Chia Cupcake” idea that another group presented to the rest of the room):

There wasn’t anything novel about this activity, but it reminded us about treating the act of designing in a similar fashion to the way music bands “jam”, in order to come up with new, great music designs.

Another interesting talk was the one given by Richard Banks, from Microsoft Research in Cambridge (UK). Called “The 40-Year Old Tweet”. This talk was great because it reminded us about the way we store our actions and thoughts into history through digital services (Twitter, Flickr…etc) and asked designers to design for these bits and pieces of our lives to be accessible –in fact, transferable by generations (the same way a physical photo albums or journals allow). Richard pointed to the fact that literally translating old forms of technology into new forms is not necessarily the way to go about designing “the future of looking back”. He also presented a short video on MS Research’s SenseCam: a camera that hangs from your neck and takes a snap shot every 30 seconds. Initially, I didn’t quite get it, but after seeing a video similar to this one, it all clicked in my head –it’s a brilliant tool to that practically allows you to relive an event, a day, and much more. Think of it as automated mental images stored digitally for posterity with a sense of movement.

These are only some of the talks I had the chance to experience live (take a look at the entire programme to get a better idea about the *many* sessions that took place). There was also “Designing for The Web in the World” by Timo Arnall which dealt with making physical objects more interactive and connected through RFID chips; Peter Morville‘s “The Future of Search” (extremely relevant to my work at Pearson right now), Ben Fullerton‘s “Designing for Solitude” (I *must* write an entire post on this session alone — talk about making me reflect about life as I know it) Rob Nero‘s TRKBRD (awesome idea that I want to see developed into laptop computers, PRONTO!) and Chris Fahey‘s fantastic (and widely talked about) presentation called “The Human Interface” (featuring Clippy, from MS Word, who wasn’t very pleased about Chris mentioning him). I won’t attempt to describe Chris’ talk. I’ll let his slides explain it better than I even could (so please go see them).

Tyler Durden was wrong...

Lastly, I found Jon Kolko‘s keynote titled “My Heart is in the Work” also very interesting. It was mainly about the role of interaction designers in shaping culture (as well as other aspects and challenges of interaction design as a practice). He explained how in order to design cultural change, designers must first understand culture in it’s current form. He also touched on important elements that are relevant to interaction design, like the power designers have to “change behaviour through empathy” (which I found particularly interesting, given my background in Psychology). Here is a link to other things Jon had to say about Interaction 10.

Are you still reading this? I’m sorry –I knew from the start this was going to be a long post (and it doesn’t even cover everything I really wanted to record here for posterity). But I know one day I’ll come back to this and be glad I took the time to write about the moments, ideas and events that took place during these amazing four days in Savannah. I hope you found it informative, whether you were there to experience it –but especially if you were not.

I’ll share other “lighter” content around the conference in the near future –I’ve still got a few photos and videos to sort through.

I finish now by saying that this event was *the best* and most effectively-organized conference I’ve had the chance to experience. If you are a UX designer (or you are at least interested in this area) I recommend you make the effort investment to attend this yearly event. You will know it pays for itself after you see it for yourself.